What ingredients are in bread? and what
ingredients are in hand sanitizer?

Question Date: 2018-10-03

Answer 1:

Fascinating question.

Let's start with bread. There are
actually multiple ways to make bread which could
change the ingredients used. However, there are
some primary ingredients that go into most breads.
First is yeast, the essential ingredient
that makes bread dough rise and gives bread its
delightful taste and aroma. Yeast alone will not
activate to accomplish its bread-making reactions.
Yeast are tiny living plant-like organisms.
They require activation by warm liquid (usually
water or milk) and feeding by sugar or starch. The
combined result is that the yeast releases tiny
bubbles of carbon dioxide (CO2)
gas, that gas being what makes the bread rise.
The added liquid (water, milk, buttermilk, cream,
or juice) is important for two reasons. First, is
dissolves and activates the yeast. The ideal
liquid temperature is 100-110 degrees Fahrenheit.
Too cool a liquid and the yeast reaction stops or
happens too slowly; too hot a liquid and the yeast
will be destroyed and not create CO2
bubbles.

Second, the liquid mixes with flour to
create a sticky and elastic dough. The added
sugar (cane sugar, brown sugar, honey,
molasses, or jam) feeds the yeast, adds flavor,
and creates some of the brown coloring of the
bread's crust. So, bread requires yeast, warm
fluid, and sugar.

Next, bread requires flour. Most
commonly a wheat-based flour is used. However,
flour can be ground from a variety of foods such
as, spelt, rye, buchwheat, oats, corn, rice,
garbanzo beans, almonds, etc. Wheat is rich in
gluten, a substance made of proteins, which
gives bread dough its elastic texture and
strength. The strong gluten network in wheat flour
is what traps the CO2 bubbles, creating
the light, fluffy volume of bread. Gluten also
causes the browning of the bread crust when baked.
That's why gluten-free breads tend to be
denser.

The remaining ingredients are salt, eggs,
and fat. Salt is also an important
ingredient. Salt enhances the bread volume,
by tightening the gluten structure and adding
strength to the dough. Salt also slows the rising
time, enabling the bread to develop more flavor.
Most recipes use eggs because they add richness
and protein, enhance the flavor of the bread, and
add color to the bread. Eggs also help make the
crust tenderer and the bread texture lighter.
Eggs are a leavening agent, meaning they help
the bread rise. Eggs are what make angel food
cake so tall and fluffy. Interestingly, egg yolks
contain lecithin, a fat that is required in
the cells of our bodies. Lecithin is used for
treating memory disorders like dementia and
Alzheimer's disease. Finally, fat is added for
flavor, tenderness, and moistness. Fat slows
moisture loss, which helps the bread stay fresh
longer. Types of fats used include butter,
margarine, shortening, or oil.

Hand sanitizer is slightly more complex
for its ingredients. Most hand sanitizer is
alcohol-based, but some non-alcohol based
versions also exist. I will only focus on the
alcohol ones here. Alcohol has been widely used as
an antiseptic, or antimicrobial substance, since
the late 1800's. Alcohol-based versions usually
contain some combination of the following:
isopropyl alcohol (chemical formula:
C3H8O), ethanol (or ethyl
alcohol, chemical formula:
C2H5OH), or n-propanal
(chemical formula:
CH3CH2CH2OH) in
concentrations ranging from 60% to 95%. The rest
of the ingredients depend on the brand recipe, and
include humectants, moisturizers, emulsifiers,
fragrances, and colorants/dyes.

Humectants are chemicals that attract
moisture to the skin surface. Most commonly
the used humectants are glycerin and propylene
glycol. These help prevent your skin from
drying with frequent use of hand sanitizer.
Moisturizers help seal the skin surface and
make skin smoother. Common moisturizers include
isopropyl myristate (a chemical substance found
naturally in nutmeg, coconut oil, and some animal
fats), aloe vera, and tocopherol acetate
(synthetic vitamin E). Emulsifiers are binding
agents to help prevent the other ingredients from
separating and thickening the hand sanitizer
into a gel. Carbomer and amniomethyl propanol are
frequently used. Beyond those, different brands
may have added fragrances and colorants to make
their products distinct from competitors.

Cheers,

Answer 2:

Bread is very simple. It only NEEDS two
ingredients: flour and water. If you mix
flour and water, and let it sit for a long time
(several days), it can make a nice fluffy bread
dough. Then, you bake it in the oven and get
bread.

You only NEED two ingredients, but most
bakers choose use at least FOUR ingredients:
Flour, water, yeast, and salt. Yeast makes the
dough get fluffier faster. Salt makes it taste
better. Some bakers also add fruits, nuts, or
seeds to make the bread taste better.

Details:
If you use just flour and water, you need to let
the ingredients sit out for a long time so that
little microorganisms (especially yeast)
from the air naturally start to grow in the flour
and water. The yeast naturally creates little
bubbles of carbon dioxide in the bread
dough, making the dough grow in size. This is
what makes bread fluffy once it is baked. You can
speed up this process by adding yeast from the
grocery store.

Hand sanitizer is also very simple. Its job is
to kill viruses and bacteria on your hands
that can make you sick. To do this, it only
requires ONE ingredient: alcohol.
Most hand sanitizer companies also add other
ingredients to make it feel better on your hands,
like water, aloe, and scents to make it smell
good.

Best,

Answer 3:

The ingredients in bread depend on the type of
bread. The absolute most basic bread can be
made with only a flour and water. The
flour is typically wheat, but others, such as
cornmeal, will also work. This will make an
unleavened bread, not the loaf type that is
sliced to make sandwiches. The classic example is
matzah.

To get a loaf-type bread, one must add a
leavening agent. Basically, this is
anything that causes gas bubbles to form.
Yeast is used in breads which are allowed
to sit for some length of time to rise. Yeast
is a microorganism which produces gaseous carbon
dioxide as it grows . Chemical reactions can
also be used to produce the necessary gas, such as
with baking soda and baking powder. Breads
made with chemical leaveners are called "quick
breads", because the lengthy rising step is
omitted. In addition, the dough must be able to
trap those bubbles. Most breads use wheat flour
because wheat contains a protein called
gluten which forms a
stretchy network well-suited to catching
the gas. Recipes without gluten require some
other ingredient to form an analogous network,
commonly eggs and gums.

Beyond the basics,
many ingredients
can be used to influence the character
of the final product. Sugar will make a bread
sweeter, but also change the texture; salt
enhances flavors and helps control yeast
growth ; fats help with texture;
pretty much anything can be added for
flavor.

The most effective hand sanitizers use
alcohols, specifically ethanol and
isopropanol as germ-killing ingredients. The
alcohol basically
dissolves the outer membrane of
bacterial cells, causing the cells to rupture and
the cell to basically explode (or at least fall
apart). Other gels, scents, etc. may be added to
make the product more appealing though.

Answer 4:

The main ingredients in bread are flour, water,
and yeast. The active ingredient in hand
sanitizer
is ethyl alcohol with water and glycerin
added to
make a gel. You can read the labels on both for a
complete list of ingredients. Bread often has
ingredients to make it taste better or last
longer. Hand sanitizer has a lot of ingredients
that affect its consistency and shelf life as well
as fragrances.

Here's something about the ingredients in hand
sanitizer:
The active ingredient in hand sanitizer is usually
an alcohol. The U.S. Food and Drug
Administration
and the Centers for Disease Control recommend
ethyl alcohol, isopropyl alcohol or a combination
of both in concentrations ranging from 60 to 95
percent. Alcohol is an antimicrobial that kills
bacteria. Benzalkonium chloride is another
FDA-approved active ingredient in some hand
sanitzers. Although it is not an alcohol,
benzalkonium chloride also works to kill
bacteria
and some viruses on the hands.

Bread is made from wheat flour, and is fermented
with bread and beer yeast. Typically bread also
contains some salt. The yeast requires
water to do
the fermentation, so you need to add water
to make it.

Hand sanitizer depends on the brand. I am to
understand that hydrogen peroxide
(H2O2) is a
common component.

Answer 7:

People across the world make different kinds of
breads with different ingredients, and different
cultures may have different definitions for the
word "bread".

For the sake of our immediate question, let us
define "bread" as the type of food made with
flour and water, allowed to rise, and then baked
for consumption. This kind of bread can have
as few ingredients as three: flour, water, and
yeast, or as many as the following: flour,
water, yeast, sugar (such as white sugar,
molasses, honey, and so on), butter or shortening
(or other types of fats), nuts and seeds, fruits
(bananas, etc.), potatoes, eggs, and fillings
(vegetables, meats, sweet pastes).

The types of "bread" that are unleavened
(not risen by yeast) can have even more
ingredients. The bread we buy from the
supermarket commonly has flour, water, sugar (any
kind of corn syrup), salt, dough conditioners (to
improve texture, mouth-feel, etc), preservatives,
and flavors coloring agents. The
conditioners are added to make the bread
taste a particular way, the preservatives
to make bread last longer, and the flavors and
colors are added to make bread taste and look a
certain way, usually a way that makes us want to
buy more and eat more. You will see these
ingredients listed on the plastic bags. Not all
these additives are harmful to us, but many can
have undesired long-term effects on our bodies.

Hand sanitizer usually has some form of
alcohol - not the same as the kind we drink
- or a substance called benzalkonium
chloride, to kill bacteria. In addition, hand
sanitizer also has substances that prevent our
hands from drying out too much (alcohol dries
skin), and these are called humectants.
Most sanitizers also have ingredients that
moisturize and make skin smoother, and ingredients
that help the sanitizer mixture stay mixed. Many
sanitizers also have coloring and fragrance. If
you're curious, you can always find the names of
the fragrance or coloring on the ingredients
list on the sanitizer bottle.